Guides · Garden year
Your garden in May
5 of the 32 species in our plant database ask something of you in May. Everything else in the garden can be left alone, which is half of what a calendar is for.
Most monthly garden advice is written for nobody's garden. It says "prune shrubs" in a month when pruning half of them costs you next year's flowers. What follows is the May row of our own Garden year: each job attached to the plant that asks for it, from the same database the Dossier is built from.
May, plant by plant
| Plant | What May asks of it |
|---|---|
| Rosemary (Salvia rosmarinus) | Cut the rosemary back after flowering to keep it dense. |
| Laurustinus (Viburnum tinus) | Prune the viburnum after flowering, not before. |
| Golden oats (Stipa gigantea) | Comb the dead blades out with your hands rather than cutting. |
| Thyme (Thymus vulgaris) | Trim after flowering to stop it going woody in the middle. |
| Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa 'Mara des Bois') | Straw or matting under the fruit before it touches the soil. |
Every job here comes from that species' own entry in our database — the same rows that build the Garden year in a Dossier.
The whole-garden job
- 01Check every tie and stake before the trees carry full leaf.
What not to do
- 01Do not plant bare-root anything. That season closed in February.
- 02Do not let a first-year plant dry out for a week: this is the month establishment is won or lost.
Next month: June. A Dossier includes all twelve rows, written on your plants — and on the first of each month we email you that month's three jobs.